Do you enjoy listening or reading? My own voice recording below or just scroll down to the text.

Hey my friend,

As I announced last week, we’re starting ABAP Spirit :)
Ok, Let’s begin. Before I’ll get to the Lectures, let me tell you my very first coding Fail. 

I’ll help myself with the funny analogy of one little boy who was learning how to hit a baseball. 

His coach (=dad) was next to him watching out how he is doing, helping him and giving him instructions. 

And one instruction made everyone in the room laugh. 

With only one exception ...

… The boy.

He didn’t get it because a small learner thought he accomplished exactly what he's heard.

“Keep your eye on the ball, son.” 

Check what he did: 

Pure-hearted kids’ logic misled him. But, generally, it wasn’t his fault; he did literally what he was asked for.

It’s interesting and funny how much the kids’ logic is similar to computers’ logic.

And that brings me to my FAIL when I started with coding.

Yeah, you might’ve already guessed that. My very first mistake or mind-shift was:

“I have a problem with the simple fact that computers do exactly what I tell them to do, nothing less, and nothing more.”

 

With programming, there’s no place for context or seeing things from a higher perspective.

Even though it sounds obvious, so many times, I tried to force the computer to do something with the effect of the coach above.

But in order to become a good developer, you need to develop one vital skill.
What is it?

The mind of the pure-souled boy.

We, humans, think in concepts... we constantly use references and work with the data (experiences) we already have had. However, you need to keep in mind that computers have no such data, and therefore, you always need to break those concepts down to the last specific detail/instruction.

• Simplify,
• specify 
• with no room for misunderstanding.

(In the Wednesday email, we’ll get to the Blueprint how to practically do that in coding. Step by step.)

Do you want to check your own thinking?

We’ve prepared for you 4 small lectures about SAP/ABAP coding. Logic statements like “IF” or “Do” (lecture #3 and #4) will serve you the best to find out.

Moreover, these lectures are your comfortable shoes to climb the “Wov” coding challenge mountain that you get on Tuesday from me.

Let’s prepare for the hike :D,

- Tom